Google unveiled its secret weapon against Oracle this week: Jonathan Schwartz.
The first third of the IP trial, which is expected to last eight weeks, deals with copyright. Patents and trademark claims come next. This week it was Google's turn to defend itself against Oracle's copyright infringement claims, and Schwartz was the …

Re: For completeness...

"This is remarkably unbalanced and only shows Googles side of the arguement."

Errm, the article quotes Schwartz, who doesn't work for Google. The article quotes McNealy, who doesn't work for Google. The article quotes "fake Steve", who doesn't work for Google.

So, umm, for 'completeness', who do you work for?

BTW: you do know how trials work, right? One side calls witnesses who testify, and the other side gets to cross-examine. Then it is the other side's turn to call witnesses. Multiple days can be spent on each side. As in this from the article "This week it was Google's turn to defend itself against Oracle's copyright infringement claims..." So the article is *about* this week's testimony. Google's turn this week. So, you know, you're basically saying the courts are biased because they let the defendent have a turn.

Re: For completeness...

Right, that's it. I've had enough. The gloves are off. You can only comment on trials if you understand trials from now on.

Be aware that trials are 'he said, she said' affairs. One party argues their side. The opposition fires off their side. We can only fairly, accurately and contemporaneously report on proceedings as the trial progresses.

Thus accusing us of censorship or bias implies your inability to read previous coverage, or appreciate the above point.

tldr; No one's side has been omitted. It's an ongoing trial, if you can't keep up, be quiet.

Re: For completeness...

"Right, that's it. I've had enough. The gloves are off. You can only comment on trials if you understand trials from now on.

..and what about an understanding, however limited, of the matters being discussed - that could, possibly, be useful ?

"Be aware that trials are 'he said, she said' affairs. One party argues their side. The opposition fires off their side."

One party argues it's side, with the other party also questioning witnesses and the other counsel. Then it reverses. There is plenty of too and fro in both cases. There is also a large amount of prior knowledge and discussion about much of the detail. These things can be reported and discussed - if the author is willing and able.

" We can only fairly, accurately and contemporaneously report on proceedings as the trial progresses."

Then report accurately.

"Thus accusing us of censorship or bias implies your inability to read previous coverage, or appreciate the above point."

Hardly, that's logic stretched way beyond breaking point - there has been a lot of ranting (which can't help either way) but I don't think measured and/or legitimate queries about missing information or perceived bias is always out of order. '[T]he above point' is also not entirely correct.

"No one's side has been omitted."

Much of Google cross earlier, and a huge amount of pertinent background information, has been missing in the two previous articles i've read. Oracle cross is largely missing here... most of this part has been missed in truth.... previous days coverage has been largely AWOL as well.

Re: I must be missing something

I suppose Redhat gets away with it because it's not really in the hardware business. People pay Red Hat for the qa, training, support and patches. The OS by itself is fine but most businesses need those other things.

It raises an interesting side issue though. Oracle ripped off Red Hat's code for their own Linux and to sell support so it hardly says much of their business ethics. It's hard to feel sympathy that Google chose to work around their IP when implementing their own Java-a-like.

Re: I must be missing something

True, Oracle never wanted the hardware business. The SEC filings demonstrate that they tried to keep various software assets, Java and MySQL, and sell the hardware business to HP. As HP's management team can't breath with their mouth closed, they did not realize that for a couple of billion dollars, which they then went and blew on Palm, they could limit the high end systems market to two companies (IBM being the other) and keep Oracle, their most valuable server software partner, as a partner instead of competitor. Oracle wanted Sun to stop open source threats to their lucrative database and application server businesses. Controlling Java allows them to control Apache.

Red Hat charges a shed load of cash for support. Sun was not collecting licenses or support from the vast majority of Java users, e.g. Google.

Re: I must be missing something

> Oracle ripped off Red Hat's code for their own Linux

No it didn't.

Oracle has done many bad things, but rebadging RHEL is not only permitted, it is expected and encouraged. That's the whole point of Free Software - it remains Free even if you don't like what it's being used for...

Re: I must be missing something

Vic,

I don't think people disagree with the statement that Oracle has the right to use RHEL code. The reason people are upset with OEL and OVM is that Oracle is providing two different levels of Oracle application support and functions (e.g. hard partitioning for OEL/OVM) for OEL and RHEL, even though they are practically the same OS. If you want to run Oracle applications on x86, it is really hard to figure out if your VMware, RHEL platform is supported and Oracle keeps rattling the sabre about discontinuing support for RHEL.... It wouldn't surprise me if they ditched support for RHEL.

Re: I must be missing something

"Oracle has done many bad things, but rebadging RHEL is not only permitted, it is expected and encouraged. That's the whole point of Free Software - it remains Free even if you don't like what it's being used for..."

Use any word you like but Oracle took Red Hat's code lock stock and barrel, changed the branding, called it Oracle "Unbreakable" Linux and sold support for it under that name. IMO it qualifies as a ripoff whether its permitted or not.

I raised it merely to highlight Oracle's malleable business ethics.

Clearly Red Hat weren't happy about it which is the principle reason they stopped releasing discrete source patches for bug fixes and just concatenate all their patches into a single file to disrupt the leeches at Oracle passing off Red Hat's support as their own. I doubt RH care so much about CentOS because it's non-profit and doubtless more than a few CentOS users upgrade to RHEL in due course anyway.

Re: I must be missing something

> IMO it qualifies as a ripoff whether its permitted or not.

Then you don't understand Free Software either.

Taking the current code pool and doing something with it is how the whole movement works. Sometimes that "doing something" will mean writing new code. Sometimes it just means getting it in front of customers. All this is both expected and explicitly encouraged.

> Clearly Red Hat weren't happy about it

Well, someone wasn't. It is my opinion that RH over-reacted to this. I actually expect them to recant some time in the future.

Nevertheless, all they've actually done is to remove some of the changelog. This makes things a *little* harder of Oracle, but not much. Bugzilla is still available, so the detail can still be found if someone is prepared to put a bit of work in.

But none of what Oracle has done can be considered "ripping off". It doesn't really matter if you believe it should be - the licence says it is not.

Re: why does Redhat do so well

Redhat has been stable because they are selling services to support the software. Sun sold hardware to support the software, and tried to make their money from that. Problem is, hardware became mass consumer product and Sun stayed in niche mode.

And what little hardware business Sun had left, Oracle has pretty much killed. Never worked with their kit myself, but I have a friend who works in for a government contractor that use to be the sort of shop that was Sun's bread and butter - lots of complex calculations on massive databases (they get about 1TB a day in new data). Oracle tried to rejigger the contracts and they gave up. Now they buy commodity hardware and run Linux.

Re: not only permitted, it is expected and encouraged.

Re: I must be missing something

What Oracle did is exactly why Gates and Balmer referred to it as a cancer. They might be the lowest form of scumbags on the planet, but that doesn't mean they weren't right about how other scumbags would approach Linux: getting fat off someone else's work.

Re: not only permitted, it is expected and encouraged.

> What is expected and encouraged is adding improvements and donating back to the code base.

No, absolutely not.

Whilst new commits are always welcome, there is no expectation *whatsoever* that users/redistributors add anything to the party. Section 3 of GPLv2 controls redistribution - either verbatim or with modifications. It does *not* require that you do anything to improve the code base - only that you conform to the licence.

And note that Section 6 explicitly prohibits adding any extra conditions - so that "expectation" of which you speak cannot exist, or else it would leave you in breach of the GPL...

Really, there is far too much "lore" like this that has grown up around the GPL, and IMO it is a big part of why some people misunderstand just how easy it is to conform to the licence. Please, guys, let's stick to what is in the licence, rather than what we would like to be there.

Re: I must be missing something

Why did Oracle want that hardware business?

Did they really want Sun for the hardware business or all the software and the potential to sue over it.. Honestly with the speed that Oracle used the legal option after acquiring Sun.. I would think it's the software and not the hardware.

Re: I must be missing something

Zippy,

I would say neither (Java trolling or hardware) were the primary goals of Oracle acquiring Sun. They clearly had no interest in hardware whatsoever until they realized they were going to be stuck with it (see SEC filings on the Sun acquisition, they tried to sell hardware to HP). The Java patent cash was probably a nice bonus. I think the primary reason they want Sun was to cap MySQL to ensure that it never messed with their Oracle DB business and to control Java to ensure that Harmony never messed with their WebLogic business. It was primarily a defensive play.

Worst Sun Decision Ever ...

... making Schwartz CEO. WTF was McNealy thinking? Schwartz was an awful business person who damaged or destroyed all of Sun's margin producing businesses. But Schwartz apparently was also a narcissist who did not want to sell Sun. Today, he seems determined to destroy what is left of Sun (if I can't have it, you can't have it).

Or maybe Schwartz is kissing Google's arse because he is hoping Google will buy his CareZone company.

Re: Worst Sun Decision Ever ...

Re: Worst Sun Decision Ever ...

Which doesn't mean Sun doesn't have a strong claim on its IP case. Copyright claims do not have to be asserted continuously, as trademarks do. But if the jury concludes that Sun was relaxed about how its IP was used, it may limit the damages to a figure far lower than what Oracle wants. (That figure has already been halved).

-=-

While this is speculation on the authors part, it does prove the point that under Schwartz, Sun wasnt strong when it came to protecting their IP.

IMHO, I don't know how much damage was done. It's a weak defense by Google.